Larian Studios has confirmed that it will no longer use any form of generative AI tools during the development of its upcoming Divinity game. Following an outcry from the Baldur’s Gate 3 developer’s community, the studio has barred the use of AI tools.
Speaking in a Divinity AMA on Reddit, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke confirmed that “there is not going to be any GenAI art in Divinity”. The CEO previously confirmed that generative AI was being used for concepts in early development, but the studio will no longer use the technology.
“I know there’s been a lot of discussion about us using AI tools as part of concept art exploration,” the CEO said. “We already said this doesn’t mean the actual concept art is generated by AI but we understand it created confusion.
“So, to ensure there is no room for doubt, we’ve decided to refrain from using genAI tools during concept art development,” he continued. “That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art.”
However, while art-based generative AI tools have been scrapped from the development of Divinity and, presumably, Larian’s future titles, the CEO explained that the studio still sees the use for other forms of GenAI.
“We continuously try to improve the speed with which we can try things out,” they said. “The more iterations we can do, the better in general the gameplay is. We think GenAI can help with this and so we’re trying things out across departments”.
“We had a limited group experimenting with tools to generate text, but the results hit a 3/10 at best and those tools are for research purposes, not for use in Divinity.”
Divinity writing director Adam Smith
Vincke continued to explain that Larian Studios “will not generate ‘creative assets’ that end up in the game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data”.
The CEO explained that any future game that does use a generative AI model to churn out artwork would be “trained on data we own”. However, the CEO has not explained what datasets its using for other areas of the game that are not creatively focused.
Alongside the game’s artwork, Divinity writing director Adam Smith confirmed that there is no generated AI dialogue for within the turn-based RPG. “The stance applies to writing as well,” they said. “We don’t have any text generation touching our dialogues, journal entries or other writing in Divinity.”
In the past, it was claimed that Divinity was using generative AI text for placeholder dialogue, but the developer has confirmed that this text didn’t actually benefit development at all.
“We had a limited group experimenting with tools to generate text, but the results hit a 3/10 at best and those tools are for research purposes, not for use in Divinity,” they explained. “Even my worst first drafts – and there are a LOT of them – are at least a 4/10 (although Swen might disagree), and the amount of iteration required to get even individual lines to the quality we want is enormous. From the initial stub to the line we record and ship, there are a great many eyes and hands involved in getting a dialogue right.”
Divinity is still in early development at Larian Studios with no concrete release date. Planned to launch in early access on PC at some point in the future, it will likely still be years until we actually see the game, but it’s nice to know that Larian Studios’ extremely talented artists and writers will be doing what they do best for the upcoming RPG.
